Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 132 (2016) 16–36 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp Blind loyalty? When group loyalty makes us see evil or engage in it ⇑ John Angus D. Hildreth a, , Francesca Gino b, Max Bazerman b a Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, United States b Harvard Business School, Harvard University, United States article info abstract Article history: Loyalty often drives corruption. Corporate scandals, political machinations, and sports cheating highlight Received 9 March 2015 how loyalty’s pernicious nature manifests in collusion, conspiracy, cronyism, nepotism, and other forms Revised 1 October 2015 of cheating. Yet loyalty is also touted as an ethical principle that guides behavior. Drawing on moral psy- Accepted 14 October 2015 chology and behavioral ethics research, we developed hypotheses about when group loyalty fosters eth- Available online 17 December 2015 ical behavior and when it fosters corruption. Across nine studies, we found that individuals primed with loyalty cheated less than those not primed (Study 1A and 1B). Members more loyal to their fraternities Keywords: (Study 2A) and students more loyal to their study groups (Study 2B) also cheated less than their less loyal Loyalty counterparts due to greater ethical salience when they pledged their loyalty (Studies 3A and 3B). Cheating Competition Importantly, competition moderated these effects: when competition was high, members more loyal Unethical behavior to their fraternities (Study 4) or individuals primed with loyalty (Studies 5A and 5B) cheated more. Morality Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Loyalty is the pledge of truth to oneself and others. 1978; Jones, 2010; Rothwell & Baldwin, 2007; Skolnick, 2002). As [Ada Velez-Boardley] this evidence shows, loyalty seems to pervade and corrupt many aspects of our social lives. Yet this account of loyalty may be overly simplistic. While loy- alty to one’s group can encourage unethical behavior, the loyal 1. Introduction often act unethically mainly for the benefit of their groups. For instance, when finance directors and accountants misrepresent Loyalty often drives corruption, as highlighted by headlines organizations’ performance, it is often for the benefits of share- about corporate scandals, political machinations, sports cheating, holders or clients (Deis & Giroux, 1992; Mautz & Sharaf, 1961). and gangland killings. In business and politics, loyalty to one’s Similarly, politicians filibuster for their party to prevent opposition friends and kin manifests in cronyism and nepotism, often at the legislation from being enacted, and school administrators inflate cost of actual or perceived competence and fairness (Heilman, students’ test scores to get bonus money for their schools (Jacob Block, & Lucas, 1992; Padgett & Morris, 2000, 2005; though see & Levitt, 2003). Slack, 2001). Such ties demand members’ collusion (Balan & Dix, Moreover, unethical behavior is not the sole purview of the 2009; Porter, 2005) and conspiracy to cover up illegality, be it loyal. People who care about morality often act unethically for wiretapping by political administrations (e.g., the Nixon White the benefit of others (e.g., Gino & Pierce, 2009, 2010; Wiltermuth, House) or accounting fraud by the corporate elite (e.g., Crazy 2011) but don’t view themselves or their actions as immoral Eddie’s, Enron, and Worldcom). In sports, loyalty promotes games- (Ashforth & Anand, 2003; Benson, 1985) and tend to discount, manship, unsportsmanlike conduct, and outright cheating, as evi- rationalize, or justify the unethical actions of other members of denced by widespread doping programs uncovered in their groups (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2007). professional baseball, cycling, and soccer (e.g., Schneider, 2006; Surprisingly, little is known about what motivates group mem- Whitaker, Backhouse, & Long, 2014). And, in the military, police bers to engage in unethical behavior for the benefit of their groups forces, street gangs, and organizations more broadly, loyalty helps (Kish-Gephart, Harrison, & Treviño, 2010). Prior work has shown foster cultures of crime by demanding members’ silence to others’ that people act unethically if they both identify with their groups transgressions (Elliston, 1982; Graham & Keeley, 1992; Hacker, and hold strong reciprocity beliefs (Umphress, Bingham, & Mitchell, 2010); if they have a high need to belong but fear exclu- ⇑ Corresponding author at: Haas School of Business, University of California, sion (Thau, Derfler-Rozin, Pitesa, Mitchell, & Pillutla, 2015); if they Berkeley, CA 94720, United States. are in positions of positive inequity and feel guilty (Gino & Pierce, E-mail address: [email protected] (J.A.D. Hildreth). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2015.10.001 0749-5978/Ó 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. J.A.D. Hildreth et al. / Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 132 (2016) 16–36 17 2009); or if they hold utilitarian ethical beliefs and believe that the to unethical behavior, highlighting the role of competition in beneficiaries of their unethical acts hold similar beliefs undermining honesty. Fourth, we specify why loyalty improves (Wiltermuth, Bennett, & Pierce, 2013). But little is known about honesty: namely, because pledging loyalty makes salient the ethi- whether, why, and when loyalty to one’s group motivates unethi- cal considerations of cheating in group contexts. Finally, our cal behavior, such as unfair actions (Dungan, Waytz, & Young, methodologies (i.e., using random assignment in the laboratory 2014). as well as measuring actual loyalties to existing groups) enable Consistent with anecdotal evidence suggesting that loyalty us to make causal inferences about the effects of loyalty on ethical plays an important role in corruption, people discount or ignore behavior and to generalize our findings to real-world contexts their immoral actions when it benefits their groups. Yet there is where loyalty is either expected explicitly (e.g., in fraternal organi- also good reason to believe that loyalty can actually foster ethical- zations) or not (e.g., in study groups). ity in addition to being detrimental to it. Loyalty is among a broad set of moral values that people embrace (Fiske, 1991; Haidt & 1.1. Conceiving loyalty Joseph, 2007; Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997). Enshrined in national oaths of allegiance, military mottos, and business cul- Researchers have examined numerous constructs related to loy- tures, loyalty is often cast as a virtue to aspire to (e.g., Coleman, alty that describe different aspects and attributes of interpersonal 2009; Connor, 2007; Reichheld & Teal, 2001; Souryal & McKay, bonds, including commitment (e.g., Meyer & Allen, 1991; Mowday, 1996) and as being closely related to other moral values, such as Steers, & Porter, 1979; O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986), identification honesty and benevolence (Schwartz, 1992). Loyalty promotes good (e.g., Abrams & Hogg, 1988; Mael & Ashforth, 1992; Tajfel & citizenship behavior, prompting people to voice their concerns Turner, 1979), liking (e.g., Rubin, 1973; Seligman, Fazio, & Zanna, (Hirschman, 1970) and help others in their community (Powers, 1980), and love (Gottman, 1999; Sternberg, 1986). Yet, the study 2000; Rosanas & Velilla, 2003). Cast in this light, loyalty can be of loyalty as a construct in and of itself has been relatively ignored seen as a virtue rather than a vice. by psychologists and organizational scholars alike (Coughlan, Can loyalty foster both ethicality and drive corruption? If so, 2005). This is surprising because, as we argue, none of these related what conditions determine whether it has positive or negative constructs fully capture the ethical nature of loyalty. effects? In the current research, we argue that the answer to this Moral psychologists contend that loyalty is an ethical principle. question depends critically on the loyal imperative, that is, whether For example, moral foundations theory (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, the interests of the group to which the decision maker is a member 2009; Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2004, 2007) argues are clear and conflict with his or her other moral concerns. While that loyalty is one of five innately prepared foundations of individ- existing literature suggests loyalty and related constructs lead to ual psychology (the others being harm, fairness, hierarchy, and unethical behavior (e.g., Thau et al., 2015; Umphress et al., 2010; sanctity). Loyalty appears implicitly within the moral code of com- Waytz, Young, & Ginges, 2014), we argue that when a group’s munity, one of ‘‘the Big Three [codes] of Morality” that Shweder, interests are unclear, loyalty will act as an ethical principle, Much, Mahapatra, and Park (1997) contend drive human action prompting loyal members to act more ethically by making the (the others being autonomy and divinity) and within Fiske et al.’s ethics of the situation salient. That is, loyalty activates related relational models approach to moral action (Fiske, 1991, 1992, moral traits and cultural scripts which prompt people to behave 2004; Fiske & Haslam, 2005; Rai & Fiske, 2011). Nonetheless, most ethically. In contrast, when the group’s interests are clear and definitions of loyalty do not reference its moral aspect (e.g., Dooley those interests conflict with other moral concerns, then the loyal & Fryxell, 1999; Hirschman, 1970; Mele, 2001;